Check the Attitude at Door : Pete Rose: He will find that humility is secret to survival in prison, former inmate/athletes say.

The spotlight and the special treatment that comes with it will be gone, replaced by a regimented lifestyle and a job that pays 11 cents an hour. The feeling of invincibility will be gone, too, replaced by emptiness and maybe even a little fear.

Tennis courts and patio umbrellas aside, such will be life for federal prison inmate Pete Rose, according to several prominent former athletes who firsthand what the next few months hold for baseball’s all-time leader in hits.

Rose must report to the federal prison camp in Marion, Ill., by Aug. 10, to begin serving a five-month sentence for federal income tax violations.

He will do his time at a minimum-security facility with tennis courts, umbrella-shaded patio furniture, a wildlife refuge and no fences. But even under those conditions, he will find prison to be a humbling, sometimes demeaning experience, say former athletes who have been there, particularly if he doesn’t leave his customary swagger on the outside.

“How many hits did he have, 4,200-something? If he takes those 4,200 hits inside with him, somebody is going to put one of those hits in his eardrum,� said former Detroit pitcher Denny McLain, who spent 29 1/2 months in maximum- and medium-security federal prisons after his conviction on charges of racketeering, extortion and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in 1985.

“He’s going to be with some white-collar guys--embezzlers, tax-evaders. But he’s also going to see some people who have committed crimes of violence, and he’s not going to believe the mentality. I mean, there are some lunatics in there.

“Like in every prison in America, there will be small gangs. People will take sides. And you’ve got to be careful to stay out of the politics of the facility.�

One former professional athlete who served a prison sentence similar to Rose’s is John Williams. An offensive tackle with the Rams and Baltimore Colts from 1969 to 1979, Williams spent seven months in minimum-security federal prison camps in 1983 and ’84 after his conviction in Minneapolis on a charge of aiding and abetting in the distribution of cocaine.

According to Williams, who did most of his time in the minimum-security facility in Leavenworth, Kan., his NFL background was widely known throughout the prison camp, but he was able to serve an uneventful sentence mainly by keeping as low a profile as possible.

“If you have to serve time, you have to accept it and be determined to go ahead and go through the process,� said Williams, now a Minneapolis dentist. “The problems occur when people think they’re exempt from the process or think they should have special treatment once they’re in the system. You sort of have to go along with the program and say, ‘Hey, I’m here. I’ve got to do whatever I’ve got to do.’

“I got along with everyone well. I didn’t have any problems. I’m not a flashy type of guy. . . . Then again, there was another athlete--I don’t want to mention the guy’s name--in the same facility who had a lot of problems, created a lot of dislike among the staff as well as the other inmates.�

But in the view of former Miami running back Mercury Morris, who served 3 1/2 years of a 20-year sentence after being found guilty on drug-related charges in Miami in 1982, it is impossible for a truly famous former athlete to blend in with the prison population.

“Because just as surely as you have people who want to do well by you, you have people who want to cross you, too,� he said.

Morris’ prison term had barely begun when he found himself sparring verbally with a guard.

“I had just been convicted--minutes. Handcuffs and a suit,� he said. “I got off on the fifth floor of the Dade County jail, and this guy goes, ‘Oh, so you’re Morris. Well, I’ll tell you something. In about two months, they’ll forget all about you. You’ll just be another inmate around here.’

“I said, ‘In about 20 minutes, I’m going to forget about you. Why don’t you try doing the same.’ That set the tone right there. I told the guy, ‘Let me tell you something. I don’t want any special favors, and I’m not going to accept any special abuse.’ And that was the way I handled myself throughout the whole time.�

As it was, Morris said that five charges of verbal disrespect were brought against him during his time in prison, some of it spent at Union Correctional Institute, a close-custody state facility in Raiford, Fla.

“The biggest problem I had was the female guards,� he said. “It (a guard’s order) would be something like, ‘Hey, Morris, come over here. Why do you walk around like you do? Go bring me a shave.’ A discretionary call. I’d go back to my room and wash my face. She’d say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s just the control factor.

“I’m positive Pete will have to deal with that type of individual, too, the kind who says, ‘You’re on my turf now.’ They want to control you.�

Bob Hayes, the former Olympic gold medalist and Dallas Cowboy wide receiver, got a similar reception upon arriving at a state prison facility in Texas to begin serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to drug-related charges in 1979.

“When I first walked in, this guard walked straight through me,� he said. “Just pushed me aside and kept walking. Big, stupid, ignorant guy. He said he hated the Cowboys, loved the Oilers. Then he threw a lot of stuff at me, like, ‘One of your teammates was down here and said you were a racist, didn’t like whites.’ �

After responding in kind--�I pushed him back and let him know that I was there to do my time and not to take abuse from anybody,� he said--Hayes managed to serve out his sentence without further incident.

“All I was concentrating on was getting out of there, just minding my own business and taking care of myself and no one else,� said Hayes, who was paroled after nine months.

McLain, whose conviction was overturned on appeal in 1987, said he never was taunted during his time in prison, but once, at the U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta, he was hit in the head by a fellow inmate wielding a fire extinguisher. The problem? The inmate felt that McLain was tying up the phone.

“He wanted the phone, and he tried to kill me with a 24-pound fire extinguisher,� McLain said. “I mean, that’s the kind of mentality that’s in these places.

“If you are behind a wall, you eventually will have a confrontation. Fortunately for Pete, he’s not going to be in that long. If he leaves his arrogance at the front door, he shouldn’t have a problem.�

For Rose, who has been undergoing treatment for the gambling addiction that led to his banishment from baseball a year ago, prison holds other dangers.

“The last place in the world you want to send a guy who’s got a gambling problem is jail,� said McLain, now host of a radio talk show in Detroit.

“Listen, I never in my life saw as much gambling as I did in jail. And while it’s only $5 and $10 (being wagered), you’ve got to remember these guys make only $50 a month. So if you stiff a guy for $15 or $20, you may have a problem. When I first walked in, some guy said, ‘I’m going to give you the best advice I can give you. Respect everybody in here, but don’t trust anybody.’ �

Former Dallas linebacker Thomas Henderson, who spent 28 months in California state prisons after pleading no contest to charges of sexual battery and bribery in 1984 in Long Beach, recalled how inmates would bet packs of cigarettes on football games and said: “Those convicts will tell Pete Rose, ‘Hey, Pete, how much did you bet on the Reds?’ �

Said Williams: “The inmates are corrupt, getting away with things. Then you see some of the staff people doing things they shouldn’t be doing. It’s a wild scene. And the only thing you can do is just go through it. Who are you going to talk to about it?�

According to McLain, who received five years’ probation in 1988 after pleading guilty to several of the old charges against him as part of a plea-bargain agreement when the government sought to try him again, prison is “nothing more than a human holding tank� that offers inmates little chance for rehabilitation.

“You go in. You do your time. They hold you for that period of time. And they let you go,� he said. “There’s nothing inside prison that is rehabilitative. Nothing. Everything is poor.�

But Morris and Henderson, both of whom are active public speakers, have said that the time they spent in prison stripped away the bullet-proof feeling that comes from gaining fame as an athlete and helped them overcome their drug problems.

“When people ask me, ‘How did you get off cocaine and the like?’ I say, ‘Well, I had a determinative experience called a 20-year sentence,’ � said Morris, who won his release in 1986 after he was granted a new trial by the Florida Supreme Court.

Said Henderson: “You know how some people refer to death as ‘the other side?’ Well, the joint was ‘the other side’ for me.�

What effect will a few months in a minimum-security federal prison have on Pete Rose, guilty of cheating on his taxes?

Said Morris: “Well, look at it this way. There are people in prison for mass murder, and there are people in prison for catching lobster out of season. Everybody’s got the same uniform on, but everybody’s resolve is different. Everybody’s rock bottom is different. Once you wise up to that aspect, it only matters that you learn from it.�